And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.
Parallel translations
- WEB Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
- BSB and your strength will be spent in vain. For your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit.
- NKJV And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.
- NASB Your strength will be consumed uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit.
- NLT All your work will be for nothing, for your land will yield no crops, and your trees will bear no fruit.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Israel's labor would be wasted as land and trees yield nothing. Without God's blessing, even hard work proves fruitless.
Overview
This continues the curse of barrenness: strength spent in vain because the land withholds its produce. It directly reverses the earlier promise of full harvests. The lesson endures—apart from God's blessing all human effort is empty (Psalm 127:1)—and points to our need for the fruitfulness that comes only through abiding in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Deut 11:17And then the LORD’s wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you.
- Ps 127:1Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
- Isa 49:4Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God.
- Lev 26:4Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
- Hab 2:13Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?
- Isa 17:11In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
- Deut 28:38–40Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.
- Job 31:40Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley. The words of Job are ended.
- Hag 1:9–11Ye looked for much, and lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.
- Hag 2:16Since those days were, when one came to an heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the pressfat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty.
- Deut 28:18Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.
- Gal 4:11I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.
- 1 Cor 3:6I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
- Ps 107:34A fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.
- Deut 28:42All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 26:20 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.